This week we had an unexpected adventure into Brisbane. Nell had a class excursion down to GOMA – Queensland Gallery of Modern Art to see the Iris Van Herpen exhibit. Being tertiary education there was no bus taking the group of students down to the exhibit so we decided to jump on the train and take advantage of the 50 cent fairs. While Nell was off being inspired by the Iris Van Herpen exhibit, I had a look at the State Library. It is definitely somewhere I would like to explore again. I think you could spend a whole day in there wondering around. There were so many things to look at. It was unfortunately raining for the best part of the day. A lot of South Brisbane and Southbank is not undercover. It was a little tricky getting around but we still enjoyed ourselves. Once Nell had finished with her class, they all went their separate ways. We found a Chinese restaurant near the Brisbane Entertainment centre, and not far from the train station. Nell had the Cantonese chicken and rice, while I chose the Chinese chicken and corn soup. We were both very happy with our choices. We had a quick look at the translink site to figure out what train we should get to get home, and headed over to the train station at South Brisbane. It really doesn’t take long to figure out what trains you need to get. We did end up having to wait at Caboolture station for 45 minutes for our connecting train but we had a great ride from South Brisbane to Caboolture expressing through most stations. There are 5 stations from Caboolture to Landsborough. The trains are remarkably fast moving. We have decided to try and take advantage of the train system while the 50 cent fares are here. J has expressed interest in going to the Museum, might even organize a family catch up somewhere at Southbank, so I am sure we will be down in Brisbane again soon. It would be fun to take the train out to Sandgate, Redcliffe and Shorncliffe, but we would also like to take the train to the Gold Coast. We worked out that if you catch the 6.25am train from Landsborough, change over to the Gold Coast train at Eagle Junction, and head to Helensvale, you can then get a tram from Helensvale to Surfers paradise and literally arrive at 9:50am. The upside is that you don’t have to deal with any traffic or idiots on the road, the downside is not having the freedom of travel around the Gold Coast as we normally do, when we have the car. It would certainly make for a different holiday not taking the car and relying on public transport or Uber (if we couldn’t make the public transport work). Anyway, I am personally keen to give the train service a go. We had fun going into Brisbane the other day, I am sure that we will have a ball seeing South East Queensland by train. If all goes well, maybe we will take a bigger adventure and head up to Cairns by train. Might leave traveling to Cairns for a winter exploration of the Barrier Reef, but I am keen as mustard to go by train. It won’t be 50 cents, but it will still be a lot of fun. Till next time, XO